LOCAL, BODIES’ LOAN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XII, Issue 240, 23 September 1922, Page 7

LOCAL, BODIES’ LOAN.

A “STAGGERING” INCREASE. PLEA FOR CURTAILMENT. Wellington, Sept. 21. “Staggering” was the word used by Mr T. Shailcr Weston, president of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, in his address at that body’s annual meeting to-‘day, to describe the growth of Government and local bodies’ loans in the past few years.Mr Weston made an earnest plea for the curtailment of borrowing. “One rather wonders,” he said, “at the happy-go-lucky way in which some country districts are incurring a liability of many thousands for electrical reticulation in anticipation of the completion of the Government hydroelectric schemes. Have these districts considered, before doing so, whether the population of.their districts is large enough to support such an outlay, and, further, whether the prices at which electric current for power and lighting purposes can be supplied would justify the inhabitants in scrapping their present lighting and power plants, and incurring this heavy expenditure? “Undoubtedly there must be fairly large borrowing owing to stoppage of national developments during the five years of war. , At the same time the growth of Government and local bodies loans during the last four years is staggering. To realise it, just Idok /it the figures in the last Year Book. The interest on these loans is a permanent charge in the future. Taxpayers would be wise to scrutinise much more carefully than they do now the purposes for which these loans are expended, and to be energetic in opposing schemes which arc not certain to be immediately reproductive. If they did t o there would not be the present pressure on the Government from all sides to incur fresh national responsibilities and to approve of so many local bodies loans. ’ ’